Observation through the Senses.

“But what sort of sense is constitutive of this everydayness? Surely this sense includes much that is not sense so much as sensuousness, and embodied and somewhat automatic ‘knowledge’ that functions like peripheral vision, not studied contemplation, a knowledge that is imageric and sensate rather than ideational; as such it not only challenges practically all critical practice across the board of academic disciplines but is a knowledge that lies as much in the objects and spaces of observation as in the body and mind of the observer”

Taussig [1992]

This two-day transdisciplinary workshop launched by the Observational Practices Lab (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., Parsons, will explore the idea of “America” through examining everyday objects. Combining artistic research practice, critical design thinking, and experimental pedagogy, we will disrupt habitual ways of looking at everyday “American” objects. Training in observational methods—from the scientific to the absurd—will be initiated by guest researchers whose fields include art, climate science, cultural geography, data visualization, economics, history of mathematics, medicine, media theory, material science, music, poetry, and politics — in order to posit alternative ways of seeing.